


Beneath His Hands

by mayalinified



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 22:33:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3335231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayalinified/pseuds/mayalinified
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I simply never brought that particular inclination to your attention.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath His Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea. Why can't I stop writing Cullrian? Please help. 
> 
> Edits done by me -- meaning there are probably mistakes.

The warmer days in Skyhold were still considerably bitter as compared to what Dorian must have been used to. The early signs of Spring could be seen in the gardens -- for what they were worth. Tiny buds on green vines, and the sun shining above, yet Dorian, unlike the rest of the residents of Skyhold, had elected to remain indoors. Cullen notes this he takes to his small alcove in the library where in the daytime the mage often suns himself like a cat, as he is doing even now on such an unseasonably warm day.

The chair -- Dorian’s chair -- is sturdy enough to hold Cullen’s weight as he leans against  it without Dorian seated to anchor it down. The other man is instead standing before one of the many shelves of books, running his fingers along the spines as if he meant to seek out the desired volume by touch alone.

“Trouble finding what you’re looking for?” Cullen asks. He isn’t bothered by Dorian’s preoccupation. If he’s honest, he finds that there’s enjoyment to be found watching Dorian work. More so, truthfully, he likes it when the mage is turned away so he can admire him without his noticing. Not as though Dorian seems to mind when he catches Cullen staring with that familiar flicker of admiration in his eyes. He just smiles, Cullen just blushes, it’s all very chaste.

“I do think I need to start marking which books I am consulting, so that they might stay where I left them. At first I thought the books were simply growing legs, but now…”

“You did encourage everyone to read the books you had sent from Tevinter, don’t you remember?”

Dorian chuckles, shaking his head. “Ah, yes. I’m rather regretting those words now.”

Cullen flexes his core taught so that he can stand upright again without having to uncross his arms. His armor makes a faint clinking noise as he walks the short distance between the chair and Dorian’s body.

They hadn’t formally announced their involvement, but those other frequent visitors of the library had begun to consider Cullen one of their own. Before, he would leave with books to excuse his presence; now he was more comfortable with the other patrons knowing his purpose was to steal a moment with Dorian for his own.

Still, their physical relationship remains private and Cullen makes sure none can see him before leaning and placing a small kiss at the bared shoulder of the man in front of him. Dorian twitches the languidly rolls that shoulder as if he’s trying to shake off the evidence of Cullen having been there.

“I do wish you’d at the very least be considerate enough to warm your lips before placing them on my person. They’re frigid,” he glances back at Cullen momentarily, then at his own shoulder before turning away with a smirk. “See, I even have a chill.”

Cullen grins, then shakes his head. He isn’t quite sure what warrants such an action, but the moment seemed airy, just private and playful enough for him to swat Dorian’s backside with the palm of his hand. The landing of the leather of his glove against the leather of Dorian’s trousers makes a dull thud of a smack, but the noise is hushed by the sound of Dorian’s sharp intake of breath.

Dorian’s entire person, in fact, steals the moment away from Cullen’s action. The mage tenses, grips hold of one of the books in front of him to steady his knees as he falls forward without any vestige of control. The book tumbles out from beneath his weight and falls to the floor at Dorian’s boots with a loud enough clatter that it draws the attention of the rest of the library.

Immediately, Cullen steps away, but he can hear the shallowness of Dorian’s breath and the unfamiliar tint of rose to the cheek that slowly comes into view. Dorian's eyes are dark, wide, so un-Dorian-like that Cullen is thrown to bewilderment with a rapidity that robs whatever words he might have said.

But his mind moves, sharp, lightning quick to the conclusion that Dorian thoroughly enjoyed what he’d done. A simple spanking, a joke, nothing he wouldn’t do to another one of his men -- though none of his fellow soldiers has looked positively desperate after having being swatted in passing.

The sound of one of the other patrons asking if they were alright shatters Cullen’s stream of thought. He clears his throat, feeling the heat rushing to his cheeks as he struggles to respond to her question.

Instead, Dorian answers a simple “Yes” and it’s clear his terse response is a result of his inability to balance his voice long enough to utter more than a single syllable.

Cullen takes the tension in the room as a sign to excuse himself. Dorian looks back at the shelf with nary more than a nod as Cullen takes a step towards the staircase behind them. All eyes are on him as he takes his leave, but he can’t look away from Dorian and the weight he keeps resting on his arms upon the shelf.

\--

The day is unbearable in the way the sun refuses to take a faster path through the sky, despite the way Cullen wills it to from the perch of his office. He finds himself eager to preoccupy his treacherous thoughts with paperwork, training regiments for the new recruits, a meeting in the war room with the Inquisitor, the other advisors, and Morrigan.

Yet the thoughts refuse to stay at bay, and he more than once he yanked unwillingly from reverie by another person who comments on the faraway look he has in his eye. Certainly he couldn’t admit he was imagining the sound Dorian made earlier that morning, nor could he admit that he was considering repeating the action again as soon as Dorian made his way to his quarters in the evening as he did almost every night.

The sun sets so slowly he wants to reach into the sky and drag it down with his own two hands. He waits with excruciating restlessness through the routine of having supper, through his nightly reports, through the customary dwindling world to silence outside the doors of his office.

He’s seated behind his desk, armor shed, reading reports when he hears the door creak open. The sound pulls him up from his chair, standing at attention like a dog waiting for his master, looking desperately for Dorian’s form to appear in the threshold.

And he is there, with a cloak thrown about his shoulders and his nose slightly pink from the nighttime cold. He appears timid in a strange, uncharacteristic way and his mouth parts and then closes at the sight of Cullen stood tall behind his desk.

“Commander?” he asks, as he shuts the door behind himself. There are candles burning about the room to warm it, and Dorian leaves his cloak in a heap in one of the chairs by the door.

“I thought...” Cullen sighs, gathering his words. His hand finds the back his neck out nervous habit. “I thought perhaps you wouldn’t come tonight.”

The admission has Dorian’s eyebrows seeking his hairline, and that slight pink color kisses at his cheeks again. It’s strange to see Dorian act in such a way. Cullen had witnessed this sort of behavior from him before, however in those cases it had been reaction to emotional intimacy, not embarrassment.

“I assume you are referring to the incident this morning, yes?” Dorian asks.

Cullen takes a step out from behind his desk. “I feel as though I should apologi-”

Dorian throws up his fingers to halt Cullen’s words. “There’s no need.”

“I hadn’t....expected... _that_ …” Cullen of course struggles to find what words to say. They fail him always in times like these and he damns himself for his inability to speak with clarity when under this kind of pressure. He wants to tell Dorian he’s curious, he wants to ask him a long list of things about why exactly he appeared to enjoy such an act being done upon him.

But instead Dorian silences him with a gentle kiss. Admittedly he’s always been quicker than Cullen has, but the way he moves like liquid into Cullen’s personal space makes break out in chills across his skin. He feels Dorian’s hands, bare, searching to find the bare skin exposed between the cloth of his trousers and shirt. His chest pressed firm against Cullen’s, but his mouth is sweet and slow, tasting faintly of dinner wine and the melon that was in season down in the valley below.

Cullen wraps his arms around him, drawing him close so he can better use his palms to smooth out the notches on Dorian’s spine. Their mouths slide against one another and when Dorian finds an adequate amount of space he breathes the words right between Cullen’s parted lips.

“I simply never brought that particular inclination to your attention.”

It takes a moment for Cullen to struggle out of the haze of the kiss into coherency, but as soon as he realizes just what Dorian means he leans far enough away to catch his gaze. His grey eyes are earnest, surprisingly so, and his bottom lip finds itself worried between his teeth.

“I...figured that you enjoyed it...I’ve never seen you in such a state,” he says with carefully chosen words. Dorian still has his hands firm grasping the jut of Cullen’s hips, and he can feel the faint pressure of his fingertips when Cullen leans in to press his forehead to Dorian’s. It’s then that Dorian’s typical hesitation presents itself. He closes in, only slightly, and looks down at Cullen’s boots.

So Cullen takes the reins in a flash of boldness that surprises even him.

“Do you...want me to do it again?”

Dorian glances back up at that, a coquettish grins spreading across his lips before he hides it by sucking them back behind his teeth. Cullen laughs breathlessly at the sight then slips fingertips over the dimples in Dorian’s back.

“Commander? Dare I say you enjoyed today’s incident as well?”

Cullen laughs louder at that and the tension seems to ease from the room much to both of their apparent pleasure. Dorian’s ass is firm under Cullen’s hands, which are ungloved and so large in comparison to Dorian’s body despite him not being any taller or broader than Cullen is.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been...thinking about what had happened.” He grips at Dorian, pushing him closer until their hips brush against one another.

“You’ve always paid a sort of reverent attention to that... _asset_ of mine.”

They both chuckle again and Cullen shakes his head. With their foreheads still pressed together, it causes their noses to touch and Cullen scrunches his enough to draw attention to the puckering scar in his lip. Dorian leans in to kiss it, the grin so evident on his lips.

“If I get too rough with you…”

“I’ll say something,” Dorian replies before Cullen can finish the question. His hands reappear on Cullen’s shoulders, satisfied to only find the muscle and bone covered by only a linen shirt rather than the typical mantle of fur. Cullen can feel his heart beating in his ears and Dorian’s heart against his own chest. He draws his hand back slowly, matching Dorian’s gaze before bringing it down with a moderate around of force that rewards them both with a satisfying smack.

Dorian’s eyes close of their own volition and his mouth parts around a moan that never makes it past the backs of his teeth. Cullen swallows thick, watching the range of emotions over Dorian’s brown before rearing back and landing his hand down in the same spot again.

This time Dorian’s eyebrows screw up, and his hands clutch by the burrow of his fingernails into the thickest part of Cullen’s shoulders. Cullen exhales slow, and then tests the amount of force Dorian will allow by landing another blow slightly harder than the other two.

Dorian’s entire body gives pulls taught and snaps, sending his erection brushing over Cullen’s. They both moan, but Cullen’s is soft in the back of this throat. Dorian practically whimpers. The sound is high, desperate, and he clings to Cullen as a physical proof. Cullen holds him upright and cranes his neck to steal a kiss away from Dorian’s lips.

He smoothes his hand over the spot, reveling in the sound and feeling of Dorian’s rapid breathing against his teeth. When he brings down his hand again Dorian groans his name into Cullen’s mouth. Nothing but a whine, and it uproots a part of Cullen he is shocked himself to find.

He turns their bodies so he can walk Dorian up against the edge of his desk. Dorian gasps when he hits the wood with the backs of his thighs and moves to pull apart the well-tamed curls atop Cullen’s head. But Cullen catches his hands and steps away, finally forcing their gazes upon each other.

“Turn over,” Cullen commands, surprising himself with the coarseness of his voice. He can feel his erection now, throbbing, making him shift his feet on the floor to grant the reprieve of the cloth shifting across it.

Dorian stares at him with his pale gaze so beautifully open Cullen feels a deeper pang in his chest at the sight. He obeys, turning away from Cullen to face the desk, as if he were there to talk to Cullen himself. Only he now goes for the clasps on his trousers, loosening them before splaying his palms flat over the paperwork remnant on the Commander's desk and falling forward enough that his chest is pressed flat to the wood.

Cullen feels his throat close tight at what he witnesses. Dorian is there, bent over his desk, belt undone and trousers loose about his him, his dark skin glowing in the candlelight, his eyes muted in the dimness as they peer backwards over his shoulder expectantly.

He doesn’t waste another damned moment.

Whatever part of him Dorian has drawn out takes the mage by the hips and yanks his trousers down to expose his flesh. Where Cullen has paid particular attention to before is reddened, taking on the slight shape of Cullen’s hand in the process. He groans at the sight and slides both palms over Dorian’s ass before swatting him on the other side.

Dorian’s head pulls back and he moans, mingling in echo with the now striking sound of skin on skin resounding through the empty tower. Cullen soothes him, one hand on his bare shoulder, sliding to the back of his neck, with his other hand tracing the raise skin left by the fell of his hand.

He hits him again, another crack, another shout from Dorian surrounding the consonants of Cullen’s name because it’s all he seems to be capable of. Cullen is heated now, all over his skin like fire licking at him from beneath his feet. Dorian is panting, chest rising and falling on the desk. Cull can feel the sweat on the back of his neck, on his scalp through the thickness of his dark, dark hair. He rolls his thumb over the dip below his hairline with a slow exhale of his own.

“Are you alright?” he asks, tenderness washing over him as he leans to kiss Dorian’s temple. The other man smiles, uneven and so unlike the classic sun-blinding grin he’s usually pawning off across Thedas.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been better,” he says. The words are sincere, but his voice is shaken. Cullen finds that this causes something to stir in him again and he groans under his breath. His other hand has not stopped tracing over the angry scarlet marks on Dorian’s skin, but the gentleness turns away from itself.

And Cullen lands his hand in torrents.

The sounds are incredible to hear, so loud as Cullen takes up speed, strength. All of which only seems to please Dorian more, because he reacts by crying out in utter pleasure. His back bends, he presses his hips back into Cullen’s hand in a greedy desperation for more. Cullen feels as though he is captive audience rather than an active participant. He can only see the reaction on the one side of Dorian’s face that is presented to him, then the disappointment when the arch in Dorian’s back cause him to press up onto his elbows and stare straight ahead.

From this angle he can see Dorian shaking, see the way he depends on the hanging of his body on the joints of his shoulders and elbows to keep him precariously upright. He watches him rock his hips, groan and cry, hang his head low when Cullen rears back and lands the hardest blow yet.

Dorian sobs out his name, “ _Cul-len_.” Two syllables, a voice that he’s never heard spill forth from Dorian’s mouth. They both pause then, with Cullen panting hard, his body thrumming with an energy that spurs him on, that calls for him to take Dorian by the hips and drive into him so he might hear his name said in such a way again.

But he resolves himself to step back, and instead move to round the desk so he can rummage through the drawers at his desk for the oil he kept on hand for moments like these. Each capricious step sends him swaying, fighting to retain some form of dignity in the eyes of Dorian. Yet as he rounds his desk he can see that dignity was absent for them both.

Dorian looks positively debauched. His hair, which was usually neat and pushed back, is hanging in strands down over the sweat clinging to his forehead. The kohl around his eyes, drawn with such care each day, is smudged ever so slightly near the wings at the edges. The sheen on his lips, the openness of his eyes, the flutter of his eyelashes as Cullen halts in his actions to drink in the sight before him.

“Maker…” he breathes aloud, and Dorian merely licks his lips in response. They’re plump from the drag of his own teeth, stripped raw as he had tried so feebly to hold back the sounds from Cullen’s earlier ministrations.

He can’t find the strength to take away his gaze, so he fumbles blindly to open up the drawer and find the scented oil kept within.

And Dorian is quiet, uncharacteristically so. He remains panting hard, staring at Cullen anxiously, shifting on his feet. Cullen reaches out, incited on by his instinct alone to comfort Dorian, to show him affection. He cups the back of his head, places his lips to the slick skin of Dorian’s brow.

Finally Dorian speaks, “Cullen, I hate to be violent, but if you spare any more time on the other side of this desk I may just have to kill you.”

Cullen laughs something hoarse and shattered, deep and knotted in his throat, and he feels himself yearning again as he comes back around to where Dorian is still exposed to the empty office. He deposits the oil onto his fingers, and kneads with his free hand into the still marked flesh of Dorian’s ass. He hears the other man gasp, and choke on his breath further when Cullen swats him again.

His fingers find his entrance, and at once he might have blanched at the thought of doing this to another man, he finds his heart beating hard enough in his chest to make him shake as his finger slips into Dorian. They’ve been together enough now that he knows how to work Dorian through the discomfort, how to judge his actions, but now Dorian is only arching and bending his hands, begging for more despite surely not being ready to take it.

“Cullen, please,” he says softly, and Cullen groans when he ruts back enough to force Cullen’s finger deeper inside.

“Easy,” he says in response. “Easy, Dorian. I’ve got you.” His lips find the back of Dorian’s neck, and he burrows his forehead against it until Dorian loses the tension in his shoulders enough to lie flat down across the desk.

Cullen leans away, working Dorian open as he starts to pick up the rhythmic fall of his hand as it had been before interruption. Dorian shouts himself unrefined, his voice not coming out clear as he cries out. Calling for more. Calling Cullen’s name. Broken and shaking, pushing back on Cullen’s fingers -- two of them now -- as the resistance turns to pleasure.

And Cullen is _aching_ , he’s _burning_ , he’s testing his resolve not to take Dorian as he’s being asked to.

“Now,” he hears Dorian say. “I don’t want to wait anymore...Now.”

Cullen bites his lip, rakes his fingernails against the abused skin of Dorian’s backside, and Dorian whimpers incoherently. He scrambles across the desk, clutching at the parchment until it crumples in his hands. His head turns just slightly so he can find Cullen’s eyes again. They share a moment’s pause together, as Cullen reaches for the laces of his trousers, pulling them apart until his cock is free. He’s hard, red at the tip and dripping from want and waiting. Dorian glances down and swallows with exertion showing in the slow bob of his throat.

There is still resistance when Cullen pushes into Dorian. He holds his hips steady, and watches, feels, as the other man tries to persevere through the intrusion. Cullen reaches up with one hand, gently runs his fingers through Dorian’s hair, then leans forward so he can kiss against the spot between Dorian’s ear and neck where he always adored the attention.

He thrusts into him with restriction. An endeavor almost too difficult to bear, because Dorian’s body curves into his, the soft sounds from the back of his throat so encouraging, the heat of him so blinding that Cullen wishes more than anything he could fuck into him the way he was dying to.

Dorian reaches back to take hold of Cullen’s hands, twining their fingers together until he traps them to the desk. Cullen’s weight covers Dorian, even as he leans away slightly to pick up momentum in the movement of his hips. Dorian writhes, and makes a show of biting down on his bottom lip while he looks up at the Commander above.

Cullen grunts, hips shaking now from how slowly he’s still forcing himself to move. Dorian is teasing, that glint in his eye so bloody mischievous to be mistaken for anything else and finally he feels his defenses breaking away.

He swaps the positions of their hands quickly, taking hold of Dorian’s wrists and ensnaring them to a place just above his head. Dorian moans, smiling around his open mouth and looks up at Cullen with a roguish sort of approval that Cullen understands as him having wanted this all along.

He snaps his hips up, listening to skin hit skin, and Dorian keens in response. From then on he can’t move slowly, he can’t hold back. He takes Dorian, listening to the other man cry out, call for him again and again around the Tevene words Cullen still can’t understand.

Dorian isn’t any less capable than Cullen, and he knows that when he takes both of Dorian’s wrists in one hand the other man could effortlessly break through. Yet he doesn’t, and Cullen uses his free hand to reach down and stroke Dorian’s cock until he’s shaking under him.

It’s not long before Cullen is brought teetering at the edge, chewing on his own lips to hold himself steady as not to fall over. “Maker, Dorian, I’m close,” he warns.

Dorian’s eyes are closed now, mouth open with hardly a sound escaping, eyebrows knitted as he’s lost somewhere Cullen can’t follow. He only nods erratically and finally pulls one hand free to take hold of Cullen’s forearm and bearing down with his nails until Cullen is sure to be marked. Then he comes without warning, a shout bursting out from his lungs as his eyes open to stare blankly at the wall. Cullen watches him, squirming against the desk as the waves of it wash over him -- a sight he feels he will keep with him for a very long time.

He keeps his hips moving, even as Dorian is unresponsive save the slow blinking of his eyes and the ragged panting of his breath. It doesn’t take long before that sightless heat takes him too, and he spills into Dorian with a hitch of breath. His forehead comes to rest between Dorian’s shoulder blades and he can hear him give a quiet moan of approval as Cullen spends himself into him.

They are left breathless, boneless, draped over the desk while sleep threatens to take them.

“We ought to move,” Cullen says groggily.

“This is comfortable enough for me,” Dorian protests. It’s difficult to say which of the two are more depleted by the event.

“You say that now…” he chuckles in response. He kisses Dorian’s temple, noses at his hairline before leaning away. “Come, come to bed.”

Dorian pushes himself up with weakened arms, and Cullen hides his smirk at the pride of being the one to put him in such a shape. They both dress themselves, though Dorian has to put in much more work to righting the wrongs of his attire.

“That blasted ladder. You could have at least had the foresight to include a chaise lounge in the designs for your office when we arrived here.”

Cullen laughs as he walks to the ladder, making ascent. “Forgive me,” he jokes. “I’ll be sure to ask for one to be delivered forthright.”

The warmth has not abandoned Skyhold, even in the nighttime, and Cullen doesn’t hide his smirk this time as Dorian scurries under the covers to escape the cold he perceives to be. Still, they both find comfort under the furs and in each other’s arms; Dorian pulls Cullen to lie in the crook of his neck, and reacts by nuzzling into the curls atop his head.

“I rather like that side of you, when I get to see him,” Dorian comments as they both slip away.

“Mm...which side is that?” Cullen sighs.

“Cullen, I do adore you, but you are a chantry boy after all and for all that’s worth, I expect very little of your sexual... _explorations_. There are some times you err on the side of deviant, but nothing quite like how you acted tonight.”

Cullen manages to laugh, sleep steeped and jovial.

“Perhaps you just bring out the best in me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at infinitygauntlets.tumblr.com where I heavily restrict how much I post about cullrian*
> 
> *I'm always thinking about it, though, honestly. Have you ever considered how dedicated they be to one another? God, they reflect one another so well. I mean, really, think about it. They have little to no past experience in a functioning relationship. They both searching to serve a purpose beyond themselves and I think they really appreciate in one another. I could literally go on for hours**
> 
> **please talk to me about cullrian like actually please save me


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